Theme 4.1 Evaluating and improving digital health communication

Despite the abundance of digital health information and its potential to improve healthcare, most health information is difficult to understand and hard to apply by consumers. Particularly people with low health literacy or older adults are vulnerable, and find it difficult to apply health information to their daily lives. This theme focuses on the effectiveness of digital health information in specific target groups and how this can be improved. Studies can for example try to identify successful message components that make health information more effective, investigate how consumers could be supported in judging the reliability of online health information, or explore the factors that make e-health attractive and effective for a specific (hard to reach) target population.

Our program

The program Persuasive Communication addresses those communication processes that are intended to achieve specific persuasive goals, as is the case in, for instance, marketing communication, health education, and public information campaigns. The research is aimed at understanding the dynamics that shape uses and effects of mediated persuasive communication. Read more >>